Memory Lapse
by Maruno
Summary: Being a tale of when Tenchi loses his memory and unwittingly chooses one of the girls. PG for one brief scene involving violence.


Disclaimer: As I write this I can honestly say that I do not own Pioneer, AIC or any affiliated companies, especially those that deal with Tenchi Muyo!  
  
I'm just going to write this, and not carry on. It's an opener, not a full-length story. I just like giving people ideas.  
  
Memory Lapse (or, to give it its stupid title, "No Need for Two Healthy Legs!")  
Somewhere buried, well, relatively deep in the Japanese countryside, there is a house. The house is bordered by a lake to its front, trees to the sides and a large mountain behind it. The house itself is a big one, and looks relatively new. It has to be large, really, as no less than nine people live there, along with a pet. The house looks new because it has suffered a lot of damage, and so has been partially rebuilt several times.  
This is typically the setting for most of these kinds of stories, and if you look inside you will see a fair bit of damage from the latest fight.  
What? No damage? Everything's fine?  
"Ryoko, you take that back!"  
There we go. Just wait a few minutes and then look inside again. More to your expectations? I thought so.  
Ryoko and Ayeka were upstairs, not becoming close friends. Their arms were locked in a struggle of power, neither one showing any sign of giving up soon.  
Tenchi was walking up the stairs, the prize of this fight, and he knew it. He reached the top and stopped. The warring women were wrestling in front of him.  
"Hey, um, you two?" Tenchi spoke nervously. "Why are you fighting now?"  
"We're fighting over the same thing we always do," Ryoko replied, her voice strained.  
"I'm not a thing," Tenchi mumbled to himself.  
"Lord Tenchi, please tell this woman that it is unfair to assume that you belong to her," Ayeka said politely, despite the strain in her voice.  
"You know, I didn't let you stay here just so you could destroy my home whenever you wanted," Tenchi said. "Please stop. I don't like either of you more than the other. I'm sure I've said that before."  
"We'll decide who you like," Ryoko said.  
"This doesn't concern you," Ayeka backed up.  
The two women each released a hand and pushed Tenchi away, giving them room to fight. Unfortunately he hadn't moved from the top of the stairs. He tried to regain his footing in midair, failed miserably, and began to tumble down the stairs. He turned as he fell, hitting his head sharply on a banister. He landed awkwardly on his right foot, which promptly twisted, accompanied by a dull crack, and landed, splayed out across the floor.  
A small consolation, maybe, but Tenchi was knocked unconscious by the banister, so he didn't feel the pain caused by his leg breaking.  
  
He woke up. He didn't know where he was, as he hadn't gotten round to opening his eyes yet. He decided to try it.  
A large amount of light blue appeared as his eyelids parted. The blue was attached to a face. The eyes were yellow. From the position of it he would say that this face belonged to a person who was either lying on him or floating above him.  
He checked. Nope, no part of his body was registering anything lying on him, although his head and right leg were bothering him somewhat.  
The person floating above his was floating above him. That was unnerving.  
A second after he had opened his eyes, he saw this person speak.  
"Hello Tenchi," it said.  
That was it. The last straw, the last piece of the proverbial puzzle that showed his reaction. He decided to go along with it.  
"Yaah!" he yelled, trying desperately to claw his way from underneath this woman. In his haste to get away he forgot to realise that he was on a table, and so fell backwards off it, banging his head on the floor. He suddenly realised that his leg was hurt. More than that, it was in plaster.  
Despite this, he continued to quickly scuttle away until his escape route was blocked by something metal. He looked at the group of six women with utter terror. Not one of them seemed to be normal. Well, there was one with blond hair and a dark tan, but she wasn't about to be trusted just because of that. All the others had strange hair. He suddenly noticed that he wasn't sure what was normal, but he was pretty confident that wasn't it.  
A small red-haired woman wearing a nurse's outfit stepped forward from the group. She was just a girl, maybe about eleven or twelve.  
"Now now, Tenchi," the girl said. "You shouldn't be moving. You should be thankful I know how to reset a broken bone in the first place. You should be resting."  
Okay, now this little girl was talking like a professional doctor. And yet she was still only twelve.  
"Who are you people?" he yelled at them, his voice quivering. But who was he? "And more to the point, who am I?"  
He didn't know who he was. The fact suddenly made a dent in his mind, after making a quick detour to his mouth. Who was he? He didn't know.  
"Tenchi, are you okay?" a tall woman with dark green hair asked. She was on the borderline of relatively normal, at least in his mind.  
You know, they seemed to be calling him 'Tenchi'. Maybe he was Tenchi. Until he knew, he was going to stay right here, armed with this... He groped round and grabbed something. He clutched it tightly and held it close to him... this small sad pipe. This small sad plastic pipe, probably a previous home to a hamster or two. Some damage that would cause.  
He didn't much care. As long as these freaks saw he was a threat, maybe they wouldn't go near him, which was fine with him.  
"Lord Tenchi?" another woman asked. She had purple hair and some sort of bit of wood on her forehead. She was clearly a hamper short of a picnic basket.  
He just drew himself into a tighter ball, his plastered leg and the weapon arm the only protrusions.  
"I think I know what's happened," the small redhead said. She looked at him. "You've got amnesia."  
"What's that?" a small green haired girl asked. She seemed innocent enough, but who knew what kind of mind lay behind those two small green triangles on her head? Besides, pink eyes aren't normal in anyone's mind.  
"Amnesia is when a person loses their memories, usually from a severe blow to the head," the little nurse said. She looked at him. "Does that sound right?"  
It seemed reasonable enough. He did a quick check. Name? Dunno. Age? A shrug. Location? Here, wherever that is. Any memory of what happened? You'd have better luck with a particularly dumb glass of water.  
He nodded slowly, grasping his pipe harder. Just because he knew what had happened didn't mean he was going to let his guard down. There was a rather unfortunate cracking noise, as the small sad pipe existed for its last few seconds, before smashing. The shards fell on the floor, a miserable memory of the ex-weapon.  
He, apparently Tenchi, felt his heart sag. The one thing he knew he could count on had smashed. None of the shards were any use as weapons, except against maybe a couple of rats.  
The person temporarily known as Tenchi stood up. He sagged down again as his broken leg quickly reminded him that, yes, it was still broken, and wrapped in a nice purple cast. He grabbed hold of the machine behind him and hoisted himself up.  
"Look, don't think I trust you people," he said. "Just because I may have amnesia doesn't mean I don't think you're weird. I'm not sure what normal is, but I do know it isn't you."  
"Why should we be normal to you, Tenchi?" the tanned blonde said. "We're all from other planets."  
"Is that a good thing?" Tenchi asked.  
  
Okay, now Tenchi had been escorted back to his own house. He had gone with the women out of the huge metal room, maybe a laboratory of some sorts, and came out through a door underneath the stairs. Tenchi had thought it best not to ask about this. It was strictly one step at a time.  
He was currently sitting on a sofa, sipping a glass of fruit juice. The six women were all watching him, presumably in an attempt to make him feel more uncomfortable and self-conscious. They were succeeding well.  
"Umm, you know what?" Tenchi said. "I need to use the bathroom." He stood up using his crutch, given to him by the short red-haired girl, apparently called Washu. He remembered something, or rather, remembered that he didn't know something. "Where's the bathroom?"  
The girl who he had first seen stood up. Her name was Ryoko. "I'll show you, Tenchi, for a price of course," she said, grinning.  
"What price?" Tenchi asked, unknowing of her previous attempts at trying to edge favours out of him.  
"Ryoko, don't be absurd," Ayeka said. She was the one with the purple hair and the wood on her forehead. "Tenchi has just suffered amnesia. We must be understanding, at least until he regains his memory."  
"And then Tenchi and I can have our fun?" Ryoko said. "Anyway, look at you, Miss Priss. Trying to be the logical one, just so when Tenchi does get his memory back he'll remember how you acted and like you more. Is that it?"  
"I am attempting nothing of the sort," Ayeka fumed. "I am merely trying to be sympathetic to his situation."  
You know, Ayeka really does have a good grasp of words. She's, um, articulate. That's it.  
"Tenchi, can I show you while these two are fighting?" the blonde asked.  
"Sure, thanks, um, Mihoshi, right?" Tenchi replied.  
"That's right," Mihoshi nodded.  
She led him to the bathroom, where he occupied himself. They went back downstairs to find Ryoko and Ayeka being restrained by Kiyone, the one with the dark green hair, and Washu and Sasami. Sasami was the small one with the green hair in two plaits and the triangles.  
"You know what?" Mihoshi whispered to Tenchi. "We should probably go somewhere else. You don't want to be harassed by those two for ages, do you?"  
"Do I normally let them?" Tenchi asked.  
"Not really," Mihoshi replied.  
  
So they went for a walk instead, Tenchi hindered slightly by his crutch. Tenchi learned a lot about who he was and who these women were. He also admired the scenery, being as it was the large lake and very many trees.  
Tenchi stopped in a clearing. Mihoshi stopped just after him and turned around.  
"What is it, Tenchi?" she asked.  
"I was just thinking, you've been so nice to me," Tenchi replied. "You're the only one here who seems normal. I just wish I knew you more, so I knew what to do to thank you."  
"Well, I don't know, Tenchi," Mihoshi giggled. "The others are all acting normally."  
"Mihoshi, I don't know how I am normally, even though you've told me a lot about myself. I don't know if I'm normally as forward as this, so I'm sorry if I'm not."  
Tenchi leaned forwards and kissed Mihoshi on the cheek.  
"Like I said, I don't know if that's what I'd normally do, but I can't think of anything else," Tenchi finished.  
Mihoshi meanwhile was turning a strange shade of red.  
"I, um, I wasn't expecting that," Mihoshi stuttered, "but don't be sorry."  
"Hey, I just thought, but I'm not anyone's boyfriend, am I?" Tenchi asked.  
Mihoshi shook her head.  
"Good." Tenchi took Mihoshi's hand. "Because I'd really like to get to know you better."  
  
And so you left them, staring at each other in the forest. But before you think that the only reason Tenchi just kissed Mihoshi is because he had amnesia, read the rest of this story:  
  
"Don't worry Tenchi," Washu told him. "I've done a scan of you..."  
"When?"  
"...and you'll have your memory back by tomorrow," Washu finished.  
"How do you know?" Tenchi asked, reaching for a rice ball. Losing his memory had given him quite an appetite.  
"Well, I am the Number One Genius Scientist in the Universe™," Washu bragged.  
"Oh, that's right," Tenchi remembered. "Mihoshi told me about that."  
"Oh, she did, did she?" Washu asked. "Tell me, what else did she tell you?"  
"She told me that you keep trying to get some samples from me," Tenchi said, fishing around his plate for a prawn. "She also told me that you consider me to be your guinea pig."  
The tone was accusing. Washu just shrugged it off. "And you never have given me that sample," she said. "What if I said that we were actually going out?"  
"I'd say you were lying," Tenchi said casually. He slurped sown the last of his soup.  
"And what if I asked you for a sample now, Tenchi?" Washu asked.  
"I'm eating my dinner," Tenchi replied.  
Tenchi didn't know what he was normally like, but he felt that he should act like this. After all, six girls didn't live with him for nothing, you know.  
"Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to eat my dinner," Tenchi said. "I'm quite hungry, and this food does nothing in the way of making me want to stop eating it."  
"Yes, it is rather good, isn't it?" Washu sighed.  
  
It was now later in the day. Fanfics tend to skip out unimportant parts of time and just focus on the interesting and relevant sections, don't you think?  
Anyway, it was perhaps ten in the evening. I couldn't give you an exact time, as the flashing display on the video recorder is default at 12:00. I know it's about ten, though, as this is about the time everyone goes to bed.  
"Well, I'm off to bed," Tenchi said.  
There you go.  
Tenchi stood up, wobbling from the added weight of a girl on each arm. He shook them off politely. He had a thought. This would be the last time he would be like this, unless he was normally like this. At least, according to Washu he would have his memory back tomorrow morning.  
"Well, goodnight everyone," Tenchi said. "I'll see you tomorrow, apparently with my memory back."  
"Goodnight Tenchi," everyone replied.  
"You have nice dreams now," Tenchi said, as he slowly hobbled up the stairs. He went into his room, undressed, despite the cast, and went to sleep.  
  
Tenchi awoke with a start. He fell. He reached a hand up to his head and felt a lump. His eyes widened even further.  
He tried to get up, but his right leg felt much more bulkier than usual. At first, Tenchi thought it was just asleep, but when he removed the bedcovers he found a purple cast around it.  
"Yaah! What happened?" Tenchi yelled.  
  
And so Tenchi was soon downstairs, surrounded by the girls. Mihoshi was patiently trying to explain everything that had happened. Tenchi wasn't really listening, as he was busy glaring at the two who had pushed him down the stairs. Ryoko and Ayeka, meanwhile, were fairly violently blaming each other.  
"Yeah, well thanks to you I can't remember a thing since you pushed me down the stairs," Tenchi scolded. "And now my leg's broken. And I think I've got concussion."  
"Well, Ryoko pushed you harder than I did," Ayeka said.  
"What? I hardly touched you. It was Ayeka who did the shoving," Ryoko retorted.  
This was going to get violent in a minute, and guess what? It did. Tenchi managed to escape with Mihoshi while the others were either fighting or restraining someone.  
Tenchi and Mihoshi went outside, where the sound of yelling and things being broken was lessened somewhat. They walked towards the woods, Tenchi muttering about the two fighters back home.  
"I don't know, Mihoshi," Tenchi said. "I could ask them to leave, but that would be a bit harsh, wouldn't it? I mean, yeah, they did cause me to break my leg, but do they deserve to be kicked out?"  
Mihoshi just stayed quiet. Tenchi was obviously not going to be stopped.  
"I mean, why can't they just live peacefully?" Tenchi continued. "Yes, they have their differences, but the rest of us manage, even though we're as different as they get. I really don't like it when they fight. Not at all."  
Mihoshi just looked down.  
"Mihoshi?"  
Mihoshi jerked her head up and looked at Tenchi. "So you really don't remember anything about yesterday, after you broke your leg?"  
"Actually, I do."  
"Huh?"  
"I just told the others I didn't remember because, well..."  
"What?"  
"Because of you," Tenchi said.  
Mihoshi just froze, saying nothing.  
"I remember how everyone acted yesterday, when I lost all my memories," Tenchi said. "Ryoko and Ayeka acted like always, not really caring that I had no idea what had happened. Washu still tried to get a sample from me. Sasami and Kiyone, well, I didn't talk to them much, but they weren't overly helpful. But you, Mihoshi, you helped me. You told me so much about everything. You were there for me, when others weren't. You were the only one who really cared about me yesterday."  
"So, so you mean you like me?" Mihoshi asked.  
"I like you all. Well, not Ayeka and Ryoko at the moment, because they broke my leg. But do you remember the kiss I gave you yesterday, when we were about here?"  
Mihoshi nodded.  
Tenchi shook his head. "I don't go back on it. That's how I feel. Yesterday, without inhibitions, I showed my true feelings for you. That made me more confident now, confident enough to tell you this."  
"So you do like me?" Mihoshi was still struggling with all this.  
"No. A whole lot more than that," Tenchi said. "Mihoshi, I love you." 


End file.
